Eternal Betrayal
by volandkl08
Summary: When Harry discovers the the truth behind is birth and is reunited with the family he though he would never have he dicovers the past is not always behind us and that sometimes old vendettas die hard. I do not own Harry Potter I'm just borrowing the characters.
1. Chapter 1

She trembled as the wind chill her through the ripped and bloody bed gown. Her eloguent robe discarded in an attempt to throw off her pursuers.

She could feel her power draining from her. She had to last till dawn. She ventured off the path into the dense forest, crying out as the thick briars tore into her feet and legs.

She didn't pause; the luxury of rest she could no longer afford. There wasn't anyone that could help her; she was alone. Her pace faltered as she remembered the events of the night. The betrayal of a trusted friend, the death of her soulmate, and the genocide of her entire race. Her soul ached. She knew her lord was dead. She was the last of her kind; well they where the last of their kind.

Her hand rested on the swell of her stomach. The child within restless at its mother's strain. From behind, she heard the calls of men and that of the horses. They would have to dismount. She had a chance now. The sky was gray, the sun would rise soon and then she could save them... soon.

A red light shot past her blocking her path with fire. She whipped around, fangs bared, hissing and snarling at the man in front of her. Her husband's friend and murderer.

"Ah, why run? You knew I would find you. I need you... well I need that monster inside of you. It reeks of power. A power that will be mine."

Her mind whirled for ways to buy time. She knew this man. 'Anger him' a voice in her head screamed.

"Your too weak to even best me. My kind created you. We created the very world you know. We allowed you to walk this world. Of course you need our power."

"Whore!" A burst of energy bolted from the end of his staff, slamming into her body, causing her to scream out and fall to her knees. As suddenly as the attack started,it stoles. "Finally on your knees where you belong."

Her body was convulsing from the last attack. However, she opened her mouth and snarled another insult.

"Well I guess next time we'll have to raise more obedient dogs. But I'll give u a chance to earn you keep. All you have to do is bark. Say woof..." She wached as his face turned purple with anger.

"You will pay for that beast."

Just as the sun peaked over the horizon, he hurled a bolt of sickly green energy at her. She gathered the power the rays of the sun offered her and the energy that was left in her body and pushed it into her womb.

She smiled as her body careened to the earth. A vision of a ruby haired girl before her eyes.

"Keep her safe..."


	2. Chapter 2

Thousans of years in the future a woman cried herself to sleep in her husbands arm's. The woman clutched her stomach as her husband whispered sweet nothing's in her ear.

For the last two years she and her husband had been trying to have another child. They wanted at companion for their daughter Petunia. They had tried many times to become pregnant but had been unable to conceive.

"It's not your fault you know..." Her husband whispered in her ear, accurately reading the expression on her face.

"I know, but it's. Hard not to blame yourself. Not to blame your body." Tears clouded her eyes. "It feels like I betrayed us, betrayed me, betrayed you..."

"Shhhh... you didn't betrayed anyone. This is in no way your fault. Try to get some sleep. Its been a long emotional day and you just got over being ill. We can talk about other options in the morning." The women gave her husband a watery smile. She had been afraid that Patrick would give up on the idea of a child because of her inability to bare children.

Patrick hummed a lullaby gently under his breath. Lulling her to sleep.

She dreamt of a beautiful women covered in blood; surrounded by fire. A stunningly handsome man stood across from her. The sun broke over the horizon as a bolt of green lightning sliced through the distance between them. The golden rays engulfed her in its light. Shrouding her with an energy so tangible it cloaked her. The women's swollen womb was encased so radiant it hindered sight.

Then it was gone. The world went back to normal. The women on the ground was slowly fading out of existence. As she woke to her husbands panicked voice, a softly spoken plea floated through her mind.

"Keep her safe."


	3. Chapter 3

The summer had been going surprisingly well. The Dursleys

seemed to be taking the Order's warning at the beginning of summer to heart.

Uncle Vernon was ignoring his

existence, a surprisingly difficult task for him. Aunt Petunia, on the other hand, seemed to have decided that he may as well do the tasks no one else wanted to do, and Dudley was hardly ever home.

Harry didn't mind the work. Even

cleaning the toilets was better than sitting and doing nothing, while dwelling on last year and mourning for Sirius. At least the work kept his mind off it all.

Hermione had suggested he keep busy as a way to alleviate his grief. He'd thought it a stupid suggestion at the time, but he was now admitting to himself

what a smart witch Hermione was.

Sweeping the porch, he found himself sinking steadily into a deeper and deeper pit of depression every time his mide would wonder to that night in the ministrey. His aunt's sharp comments and his cousin's occasional torments no him, so unimportant compared to what had happened, and to what was surely coming up.

Harry had always rather enjoyed washing dishes, but the fun of it

was somewhat diminished when you had Aunt Petunia grumbling alongside you, Harry thought somewhat sourly. The Dursleys were having a party tonight.

Aunt Petunia had been preparing for it all week, which meant Harry had been preparing too. Now as she fiddled with some delicate salmon sandwiches, she kept up a running, if slightly disjointed, commentary.

"Hope no one's allegic to fish... tables set... ten per tray...arrivals at six thirty... iron Dudley's suit...make sure the boy's out of the way... and that awful owl, can't have it screeching again - it'll frighten all the guests..."

Harry belatedly became aware that instead of mumbling to herself, Aunt Petunia was now talking to him.

"Sorry," he attempted to explain, "but she's out at the moment. I had to send...well, one of my kind, a letter. He was a bit worried, you see."

Aunt Petunia's lips pursed like the always did whet 'Harrys people' were mentioned.

"I suppose you've been writing to that criminal godfather of yours again, have you?"

The glass in Harry's hand shattered.

They both stared at it in disbelief for a moment.

Harry wasn't sure how that had happened. Sure, the mention of Sirius had rankled. And sure,

he'd been about to angrily reply that Sirius had not been a criminal. But he hadn't been aware of holding

the glass particularly tight, or of squeezing it in frustration. He only hoped it wasn't magic. The last thing he needed was more trouble from the ministry.

"Can't you do anything right?" Aunt Petunia shrieked.

"I'm working my fingers to the bone here and you're just la-di-dahing, smashing my expensive, one-of-a-kind, cyrstal glasses , of all the things! No wonder no one from that school wants you to stay with them. You ruin everything!"

The plate in Harry's hand shattered. This time Harry couldn't be sure it wasn't the pressure from his hand. Blood ran down his arm his fists were clenched so tightly his arms were shaking slightly. Not from anger as much as a variety of pent-up

emotions he could no more explain than he could isolate.

Luckly he didn't have to try. Aunt Petunia seemed to have had

the same idea, and was frantically ushering him out of the house while scolding and shrieking after him.

"Out!" She said in a tone of great finality. "I don't care where you go, but

make sure you don't come back until after everyone has left."

Before Harry could reply, the front door had been slammed in his face.


	4. Chapter 4

Harry wasn't sure how happy the

Order would be about all this. Now that he knew about the Prophecy,

they were relying on his common sense and weren't going to be guarding him nearly as close this

summer. Obviously, no one had considered the possibility of his relatives throwing him out. Thankfully he had taken to carrying his shrunken trunk with him.

Harry sighed and began to trudge up the street. He couldn't say he was exactly pleased that his aunt threw him out, but he was in no way tore up to be away from his so called family.

Harry walked until he reached an abandon park where he often hid when he was younger. Harry had always liked this park. Maybe because the

Dursleys had never brought him or Dudley here -

They had always preferred the bigger more professanal parks. He had always felt at peace here. Like he belonged. He certainly never belonged anywhere else. He'd never belonged with his

aunt and uncle. He certainly didn't belong in the

Muggle world. But as a half-blood, raised by Muggles,

and of course as The Boy Who Lived, Harry had never

quite belonged in the wizarding world either. The

prophecy meant that he didn't really belong with the

rest of the Order now, even if he was eventually

allowed to join. In the end, it was his fight. Not

anyone else's. And even though he thought of

Hogwarts as his home, Harry knew he didn't really

belong there either. A Parselmouth in Gryffindor? And the student body had

made it clear,over his years at Hogwarts, that he didn't

belong there in the slightest. Every year he'd been

singled out, either as a criminal or a victim, a liar or

a hero.

He didn't belong with the Weasleys, though they tried to make him feel like he did. In the end, he was just

Ron's best friend, the odd one out because he didn't

have red hair and freckles. He almost belonged with Ron and Hermonie the 'Golden Trio', but even there he didn't truly belong. To them he was their friend but to him they were his family.

That was it really. Harry knew that if he had a family, a real one, as in not the Dursleys, maybe it would be different. But he didn't, so it wasn't. He didn't belong anywhere.

"Better get used to it, then," Harry commented, as he

plonked down on the park bench, not in the least

bothered by the fact that he was talking to himself.

After all, who else did he have to talk to?

"To what?" A curious voice asked. Harry glanced up,

startled, to see a concerned face peering down at

him. It was a women about his age with a bright mop of curly ruby hair. Harry had never seen her

before, and reached instinctively for his wand,

remembering just in time that it wasn't necessarily a

trap, and that this could simply be a Muggle. In which

case, he ought to be careful. He didn't want anymore

trouble with the Ministry.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to startle you," the women said apologetically, staring at Harry with a curious look in

her eyes, "you just looked so sad," she explained.

Harry shrugged, not sure how to respond to that. He

averted his own eyes, uncomfortable with the other's intense scrutiny.

"Mind if I sit here?" The girl gestured towards the

bench next to Harry. Again, Harry shrugged, his

casual movement belying the tension that pervaded

him, his hand still firmly grasping the wand in his

pocket.

The women seemed to take that as a sign of assent, as he

sat down without saying anything more.

They sat like that for several minutes, not saying

anything. Harry was still very tense, but the other appeared not to notice. She seemed to be studying the park very intently, as though trying to learn its

every detail. Harry took the chance to study her in

turn.

He realized now that the women was older than she had first

appeared. That curly ruby hair had given her a

curiously girlish look, but looking at her, Harry

thought she was probably about nineteen, give or take

a year or so. She was of a medium build, a lot taller

than Harry standing, but not all that different when

they were seated as they were, side by side. Her eyes

were brown. Not 'chocolate' or 'hazel' or anything like

that. Just brown, Harry thought. She wasn't tanned, she

wasn't pale. she wasn't curvy, she wasn't scrawny. She was, in fact, completely ordinary . Something Harry couldnt be. Harry wasn't quite sure how he felt about that.

"So, are you going to tell me?" the women asked, seemingly out of the blue. She was still staring intently

around the park, and Harry found himself warming to

this women without quite knowing why.

"Tell you what?" Harry asked, when the silence could be dragged out no longer.

"What you have to get used to, of course." The girl turned to look at him and Harry felt a sudden twitch in his stomach that had nothing to do with fear of a possible Death Eater trap. Harry looked away, feeling it was his turn to study the park now. The women

obviously felt it was her turn to study Harry, because that was exactly what she appeared to be doing.

"Nothing. Just...had a bit of a tiff with my folks, that's all," Harry explained non-committally. He couldn't exactly blurt out that the most evil wizard in known history had killed all his family and was now out to kill him too, could he? Not when this women was, to all

appearances, a completely ordinary Muggle.

"Yeah. That sucks, doesn't it?" The girl nodded in understanding.

Again, Harry shrugged. What was there to say to that, after all?

"I had one something awful with my parents, before I

came here," the girl continued, "but I..." She stopped abruptly.

Harry glanced over. It took no more than a glance to

see the pain flooding the women's face. For perhaps only

the third time since Sirius' death, Harry felt something pervade the aching numbness inside him.

He wasn't quite sure what that something was, an odd mixture of pity and curiosity, he thought, with something else he couldn't quite define thrown in, some more primal instinct that was driving him to feel

some sort of compassion for this unknown women.

"I don't think I've seen you around before," Harry offered. "I'm Harry."

"Celest," the other girl said, sounding brighter now that they were on the safer subject of names, rather than

family. She held out his hand somewhat formally and, with a barely obvious pause, Harry reluctantly took his

off his wand and took Celest's. Nothing happened. No Death Eaters swarmed them. Celest didn't produce a

wand in her left hand and stun him. Relief made him grin, and he noticed Celest was smiling back. He felt

his stomach twitch again, had the feeling of an odd sort of knot was forming there. Putting it down to stress,

he removed his hand which he now realized had been holding Celest's for just a touch too long. He felt himself blushing slightly, without quite knowing why.

Luckily, Celest didn't comment.

"So, you live here then?" Celest remarked casually.

"Only over the summer," Harry replied, "thank GOD. I'm at boarding school the rest of the time." He didn't say he was at St Brutus' School for Criminal Boys,

even though he was sure the Dursleys would have liked him to. It was a rumour he wasn't all that keen

on spreading. People seemed to hate him enough as it was.

"You really don't get on with your parents, hey?" the

girl observed.

"My aunt and uncle," Harry corrected. "My parents are dead."

"Oh. I'm sorry." To her credit, Celest didn't look at all awkward or embarrassed as people usually did.

Instead, she just sounded genuinely sympathetic. Harry

warmed to her a little more.

"No big deal. I don't remember them, anyway. They died when I was a baby."

"And you've lived with your aunt and uncle ever since?"

"More joy for me." Harry couldn't quite keep the bitterness out of his voice. But Celest didn't comment.

Harry found himself liking this women more and

more by the minute.

"I don't think I've seen you around before." Harry

changed the topic.

"I'm just staying for the summer."

She didn't seem disposed to say anymore and Harry

didn't want to press. There was a brief silence. Then

she sighed and turned to face him on the

bench.

"I'm staying with my godmother while my parents get

a divorce," she explained, more than equalling the bitterness in Harry's voice. "See? Having parents isn't

all its cracked up to be." Harry thought that a rather tasteless comment, but she let it slide. Celest was obviously rather distressed.

"I just don't understand it, you know?" She continued.

"They seemed so happy. I

was at boarding school too, you know. Just finished my final year. But I used to come home every holiday and heaps of week-ends. I should have guessed something was up when they told me to stay at school for Christmas. Wouldn't have been much of a

Christmas anyway - Dad had already moved out. But they didn't tell me till I got home last week."

"Ouch," Harry commented.

"Exactly. It was the same old story. Dad ran off with his secretary. They didn't tell me in case I blew my Finals! That's all they care about. Exams and

marks and awards and stuff. Not about telling me the truth."

Harry nodded sympathetically. A year of lies and mistrust was something he could relate to.

"It just makes me so mad! Because I can't help thinking that maybe if they'd told me, I'd have been able to..."

She trailed off. 'Help' was the word that instantly came to Harry's mind, though he couldn't be sure that that

was how Celest had intended to finish the sentence. The similarities with his own last year were striking, or maybe it was just similar wording of entirely

different problems. Still, Harry thought, here is someone who is just as lost and confused as I am. You obviously don't have to be a wizard being hunted

by a megalomaniac to have problems.

"I don't know why I'm telling you this," Celest said abruptly, shifting stiffly in her set. "I must be boring you to tears.

Sorry."

"It's okay. Go on. I love hearing about other people's problems. Takes my mind off my own."

The women looked at him curiously, then sighed and leaned back against the bench.

"Have you ever been convinced that something was your fault?"

Harry sucked in his breath sharply at that, but if Celest noticed, she made no mention of it.

"Like, even though you know it wasn't and everyone tells you not to be silly because you couldn't have known and in a way, it wasn't anything to do with you anyway, but you still can't help blaming yourself because you just think that maybe if you'd been a bit

more careful, or if you'd seen the signs earlier on, if you'd thought about it a bit more diligently, maybe you could have made it right?"

Oh, God, Harry thought. Not now. Not tonight. Please don't make me go through this again. But he didn't

say anything. He let Celest talk.

"I just can't help wondering if maybe I'd been more observant and noticed the signs I could have done something about it. Could have prevented it,

somehow. Or maybe if I hadn't been such a brat Dad wouldn't have left. Maybe if I'd been a bit nicer to

Mum she wouldn't be in therapy now. I didn't make Dad go after his secretary, but maybe if I'd been at home instead of at school, or if I'd stayed in touch

more or something, then maybe he wouldn't have gone. Maybe if I'd been a better daughter, they'd have had

a better marriage, you know?"

There was a long silence. What could Harry say? How could he offer comfort when he himself was having the same problem? But he knew he had to try.

"Maybe you could have helped," Harry said, eventually breaking the silence that had fallen between them, "but maybe you would have just made

things worse. Or maybe it would have all turned out the same. You couldn't have known," Celest made to

interrupt, but Harry forestalled her, "and I know that doesn't provide much comfort. Believe me, I've

been there. I'm still there. You still keep blaming yourself. You tell yourself that not knowing is not an excuse for not seeing. But even if you had known,

maybe it would still have worked out the same. Maybe it would have been worse. Who knows?"

To his great surprise, Harry found that in trying to provide Celest with some comfort, he was instead comforting himself. Somehow the arguments his friends and even he himself had made seemed more convincing when he spoke them aloud, to a stranger who understood.

"All I know is," Harry continued, "you can keep asking 'what if' all your life. And you'll never find an answer.

And you'll just end up spending the rest of your life so caught up in the past that you forget to live your

future. You can't change the past. But you can change where you're going."

Celest had spun around to look at him in surprise at Harry's words. Harry himself was surprised. How had

they gotten here? Two complete strangers, discussing the most intimate details of their lives on a park bench? It was like some Muggle movie.

"How do you know all this?" Celest demanded, eventually. "How come you understand?"

Harry shrugged. His first instinct was to pass over it with some light comment, but Celest deserved better than that. She'd shared her past with Harry. Harry

could at least share part of his as well.

"I made a mistake a few weeks ago. A really big one. And because of that, my last real family member is dead."

Celest said nothing. Again, Harry was grateful. He didn't

want sympathy. He didn't want it from his friends, and he certainly didn't want it from this stranger who was suddenly not quite a stranger because maybe she

understood.

"It's different," Celest said abruptly.

"And yet it's the same," Harry commented. "It's guilt over a mistake we didn't even know we were making

at the time. Guilt for something we know wasn't our

fault, yet we can't help feeling that it is."

"Was it our fault?"

"Does it even really matter in the end? What matters is that your parents are getting a divorce, and my godfather is dead." Harry's throught tighten at the words, "Does blame even come into it?"

"It has to. We are human beings, Harry. Creatures of conscience. We believe in right or wrong, however inconvenient it may be at times, and so we must

believe in guilt."

"Maybe. Or maybe it's just easier to blame ourselves than to deal with our grief."

"Grief? Over a divorce?"

Harry shrugged. "I guess I wouldn't know about that. But I think grief probably fits into it. Not just for your

parent's marriage, but for your childhood, for your

family. You're still losing something that meant a lot

to you, something that you based your whole life

around."

Celest sighed.

"Maybe you're right. But it's so hard! So hard to just quietly grieve for them when I want to yell at them for not trying harder, and yell at myself for being so stupid!"

"I know. Sometimes I don't know what I want to do more: find Sirius and tell him how unbelievably sorry

I am, or find him and yell at him for being stupid enough to come after me in the first place. I get so angry sometimes. I hate it! And I just wish, more than anything, that I could take it all back. I want to live it over, knowing what I know now. I just want to make

things right, and I hate knowing that I never can!"

And from being the comforter, Harry was now the one who received comfort. Celest obviously didn't know

what to say, but when she saw the silent tears that

were rolling down Harry's cheeks, she did what seemed

to both of them at the time the most normal,

ordinary reaction. She moved across the seat and hugged him. And Harry hugged her back, not knowing

what else to do and glad for once to take a piece of someone else's strength. Lately, he felt like he had precious little of his own to draw back on.

After a moment, Celest drew back. But she didn't move

away. For a long time, they sat like that, side by side,

lost in thought. Gradually Harry's tears dried, and he

was surprised by how much better he felt for shedding them. He realized it had been over a year since he'd last cried - since Cedric's death. He'd

resolved then not to cry again for a loss, since crying didn't help and wouldn't bring anyone back. But

tonight he'd found shedding tears with a stranger to be a cathartic experience, a cleansing one. The aching pain was still there, but he no longer felt quite

so closed off from everyone around him. Funny... It

had taken a stranger to reawaken him to his friends.

Celest appeared lost in thought, her eyes red from the

few tears he too had shed, for himself, for his parents or even for Harry neither of them knew. Harry wasn't

sure how long they sat there in companionable silence. Looking back on that night in the years to

come, he wouldn't even remember what he'd thought

about. But he knew that he did a lot of thinking then,

sitting next to a stranger in a small suburban park. It

was the first time since Cedric's death that Harry felt at peace. Time seemed to stand still. It was a moment that both passed in an instant and seemed

to last a lifetime. In actual fact, it was neither of those, but likely a matter of hours. When Celest had moved across the bench, it was still light, though the

sun was below the horizon. When he next spoke, it was dark, the distant streetlights casting a hazy glow

over the park which allowed Harry to still see clearly, but at the same time gave him a sense of protection

from prying eyes. "You know, Harry," Celest said eventually, her voice

pitched so soft that Harry scarcely heard it, "I once read that you atone for the mistakes you make with the life that you lead." she paused, allowing Harry to

absorb this, then continued. "I don't know you. We've only just met. But if there's one thing I do know about

you, it's that you're going to do wonderful things. You're going to change the world Harry. I can tell. I

don't know if that helps at all, but it's like you said.

Neither of us can dwell on the past while there's a future waiting for us. And I didn't know your godfather, but I'm sure he wouldn't have wanted you

to dwell either. If he loved you, he'd have wanted you to let go and move on with your life, to get going with

all the wonderful things that I and everyone who meets you know that you're going to do."

Harry wasn't quite sure what to say to that. But he couldn't say nothing either. He opened his mouth to

thank Celest, but what came out instead was "How do you know? That's what he thought, too. My godfather,

I mean. He was so sure that I was going to change the world. And he gave his life trying to protect me. So did my parents. What if I don't? What if I don't

ever do anything? What if I never repay them for everything they did for me? How can everyone be so sure that I'm going to change the world when I'm still

trying to change myself?!"

It wasn't a fair question to ask Celest, Harry knew that.

It probably didn't even make sense to the women.

But it was one that Harry desperately wanted an answer to, even though he knew no one could give it.

"I can't answer that, Harry," she said gently. "At least, I could say that there's just something about you that tells me that you're special, but you wouldn't believe me and I wouldn't be able to explain it. But if your godfather and your parents and your friends all

believe it, then there must be a reason for it. And maybe you don't even have to know what that reason is. Just remember, if they gave their lives for you, then that was their choice, not yours. And instead of blaming yourself for whatever mistakes you've made,

accept the gift they gave you in the spirit they offered it and try to be worthy of the sacrifices they made.

That's all you can do. That's all anyone can do."

"But what if it's not enough?"

"For anyone who loves you, it will be enough. And if they gave their lives for you, then they love you enough to accept your failures and your mistakes.

And they won't ask for more than your best."

For a moment, Harry paused. Then he gave in. With one long breath, he exhaled many of his worries and

doubts, at least for that night.

"Thank you," he said simply.

"I should be saying the same," Celest answered. "It's not often one both gives and receives comfort from a total stranger."

Harry laughed at that. "No, not often," he agreed. Their eyes met. Harry heard a sharp indrawn breath.

He wasn't sure if it was hers or his own. The funny lurching in his stomach was back. Except now he felt fluttery all over, as he sat there staring into this girl's

completely ordinary brown eyes. It was Celest who finally broke the contact, blinking rapidly in succession and then allowing her eyes to flicker over

Harry's face. For the first time, she noticed Harry's scar.

"Did that happen when your parents or your godfather..." She trailed off, no longer looking at Harry's face. Harry sighed a little dispiritedly. Even in

the Muggle world, it seemed his scar haunted him. "When my parents were killed, yes."

"May I..." Again, Celest trailed off. Harry peeled back his fringe obligingly, assuming she wanted to see all of it.

He was not prepared, therefore, for the feel of a cool fingertip tracing the lightning bolt on his forehead. He

wasn't prepared for Celest's face suddenly mere inches from his own. And he wasn't prepared for eyes that

gazed on him with neither curiosity nor awe nor fear nor even pity, but rather a sort of rough understanding. A sympathy born of the battle ground.

Because that's what tonight had been, really, Harry thought with a mirthless smile on his lips. A battle

ground where he and this stranger had fought their demons. They'd won tonight, but what about tomorrow? What about the rest of the war?

The feel of Celest's cool hand on his cheek brought Harry swiftly back to reality. Celest had finished tracing

the pattern of Harry's scar, but she hadn't moved

away. She wasn't gazing at Harry's scar anymore. She was looking into Harry's eyes. "It must be hard to live with the reminder of such loss," she whispered She turnd her face away, seemingly looking nowhere,"It's time for me to leave. Im sorry to have to go like this. I'm sure we'll meet again." She leaned over and brushed her lips across his cheek. "Til we meet once more."

Harry stared after her as she walked from the park. He wasn't sure what was happening anymore. Involuntarily,

Harry touched his fingers to his cheek and then slowly smiled to himself. He flattened his fringe back down

over his scar and then slowly stood up.

Still feeling utterly confused, he began to make his way to the wizarding world.


	5. Chapter 5

Feet and tender breasts ached as she tramped through the unforgiving terrain. Blood trickeled down her leg to the ground leaving one bright red spot of life amidst the unending emptiness.

The child in her arms almost glowed with an ethereal beauty a stark contrast to the terror reflecting on his mother's face. Ruby tresses, normally immaculate, were loitered debris; blood seeped from a gash on her face. However, the most startling aspect of her appearance was her eyes. Once as green as Ireland's rolling emerald hills, they were now milky and lifeless. Her eyes, unseeing, darted around, as if she would see any minute. Although dead, tears still ran down her face over gaunt cheeks; making her aristocratic bone structure appear sharp on her delicate features. The salt of her tears burning her cracked and bleeding lips. Washing away dried dirt and blood leaving track marks in the thickly caked grime.

Ahead, she heard footsteps running toward her. One set of footsteps stopped abruptly as the second ran straight towards her. Arms wrapped around her gently lowering her to the ground. As hands lifted her son out of her arms, a sob tore out of her throat. Her nails clawed at the hands that held her. They were taking her baby...


End file.
